Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos today met with the 27 EU member-state ambassadors to Athens and representatives of the European Commission to present the offer of Greece to host the European Medicines Agency, which is being relocated from London.

The complete offer was submitted today to the European Commission and the European Council, while information on Greece's offer is available at www.emathens.eu.

In his statements, Mr. Katrougalos stressed that we will pursue the necessary diplomatic alliances in order to get the best possible result, adding that there is a good chance Greece’s offer to host the EMA will be successful. We are pursuing this to show that Greece is now returning dynamically as a normal country – rather than being a country dependent on supervision – in Europe, and also to point up the international orientation of Greece in a sector such as that of pharmaceuticals, in which we have major successes to show in both the public and private sectors.

Mr. Katrougalos noted that the EMA's presence in Greece would be significant on more than just a symbolic level. It is an organization that does important regulatory work in the strategic sector of pharmaceuticals, benefiting European citizens and safeguarding the highest good of health. It employs hundreds of personnel, and we would hope that its presence alone will significantly increase the flow of visitors to Greece while also bolstering the economy of the area where the EMA headquarters are to be located.